Plastic bags and reusables

As soon as I’m done writing this, I’m going to smash my keyboard, set fire to the monitor, and biff my computer in the bin.

Well, that’s what I would do if we treated all products the way we treat plastic bags. Astonishingly, a plastic bag’s intended lifespan can be measured in seconds – the time it takes to carry your shopping from the supermarket to the car, then the car to your home – before it’s considered waste.

It’s crazy, isn’t it. As arguably the world’s most conspicuous disposable object – invented in the ‘60s with around 500 billion produced every year – plastic bags are the poster child for the insane throwaway culture our planet has adopted. Pens, drink bottles, cups and cameras: modern culture has turned into some giant Greek dinner party where the crockery – and everything else – is trashed as soon as it’s used. And the flying flag for this absurd state of affairs is a plastic bag caught in the branches of a tree.

Yep – plastic bags are made out of pure evil with handles attached. While those wonderful reusable bags are made out of… well, er… what are they made of?

Hmm. It turns out that those common reusable bags are made from a kind of plastic too. That was one of the fascinating facts turned up by environmental engineer Andrew Mackintosh when we asked him to investigate the impacts of both kinds of bag. Here are some more: both plastic bags and reusables are made from by-products of the petroleum industry. And once disposed both products hang around in the environment for more or less a gazillion years.

His research turned up some good news though: those reusable bags are definitely the greener option – so long as you use them the way they’ve been designed. And that’s because the way they’re designed is to be functional until they’re completely worn out, not used once then thrown away. What a revolutionary concept!

They’re also greener because they cause nowhere near the pollution problem of the alternative. Plastic bags blow around our cities by the hundreds. They tangle in trees, and wash into the sea where they get mistaken for jellyfish and eaten by turtles. I counted six on the way to work this morning.

So sure, those reusable ‘green’ bags have their flaws, but you can rest assured that every time you use one, you’re doing something small yet valuable for our environment by cutting down the demand for plastic bags. And then, who knows? Maybe one day the world of disposable products will run out of flags to fly.

So maybe I shouldn’t smash my keyboard after all… though it did sound kind of fun.

Greg Roughan
Editor, Green Ideas magazine

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